


Connection

by fictorium



Category: West Wing
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-12-02
Updated: 2010-12-02
Packaged: 2017-10-14 07:17:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,115
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/146773
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fictorium/pseuds/fictorium





	Connection

  
Guilt is better drowned, Kate knows from experience, but she hasn't got much appetite for tequila once Camp David lands Leo in the hospital and takes his job to boot. She's taken more from a man with less of a reason, but no amount of politeness or statements of absolution will make her feel less complicit. The price of peace, she supposes. It's why the President can't meet her eye for a week or two, even as they all avoid the subject.

  
Sometimes, the Sit Room is Kate's favorite place. Other days, she'd rather have root canal without anesthetic than step through its doors, but she places her palm on the scanner and walks in anyway.

  
It helps that CJ is usually the face across the table now, her curiosity and willingness to compromise makes it easier to present the NSA's position. Unlike Miles Hutchinson and his absolutes, his blanket refusals and sheer stubborness, CJ Cregg is a realist who will get the job done. It's hard not to like that about her, even for Kate who makes a point of liking almost no one.

  
The personal conversations come as a surprise when they begin, and Kate has to shake the rust off that part of her vocabulary to keep up. CJ thinks out loud a lot, which is both comforting and confusing at times. She can flip from oil reserves to terrorism to the Kate Spade clutch she keeps meaning to buy, and Kate finds herself interested in all of it. It's easy company, a rarity after years of sneaking around and building false relationships in too many different places. Washington is starting to feel like home, and these people know her everyday face, unobscured by wigs and other tricks.

  
Kazakhstan begins, and it’s a nightmare in their waking hours. Kate does her best to control Frost to manage the diplomatic gossip and confirm basically nothing, as is her remit. That doesn't work on CJ anymore, who's seen Kate with her guard almost down and whose clearance is just as high. They take a moment, walking together towards that basement room where the chaos is about to begin, and exchange wry smiles that suggest they're really in it now. As though brokering peace on the Gaza strip was somehow a warm-up.

  
Friendship is actually more terrifying to Kate, because she's trained herself to exist without it. She has acquaintances, family after a fashion, but being constantly on the move from the month she was born doesn't lend itself to getting clingy. So it's weird when she starts seeking out CJ's opinion voluntarily, not just dumping another memo in the out tray for her office. That they can pass an hour or two with a glass of wine without time ever dragging is kind of a revelation.

  
Then there's the damn shuttle, and Kate feels herself slipping back into old habits. Her gut instinct is that CJ would never compromise them that way, not the CJ who's honest to a fault and who knows just how to eke out a laugh after sixteen hours of crisis talks. Problem is that Kate's spent her working life distrusting everyone, and in the midst of the biggest security breach since the Cold War, it's really no time to break that habit.

  
She does, though. Not that she'll admit it, having conducted her investigation thoroughly on the surface. The relief when Congress takes over, removing the burden of interrogating a friend (and damn if that word doesn't still sound funny), is not something Kate is proud of. There's a lingering doubt, because reporters don't love Toby the way they flocked around his predecessor, but the devastation on CJ's face seems too real to ignore.

  
This is why Kate doesn't do personal, doesn't want to come to work with people who know too much about her: it hurts when they sell you out. She's seen files that the White House staff probably don't realise exist, and she knows as much about Toby and CJ's friendship as they do, she'd wager. That's a lot of time to care about someone, only to have to pick the other side. Because that's what CJ does, cutting Toby off like a diseased limb, and Kate can breathe out because that's what she would do, and it's such an important thing to have in common.

  
She steps up, like she steps up for Nancy who's courting a Cabinet position in the next administration, as is her right. Kate picks up the slack on late-night chats, spending more time on that side of the building, making herself available.

  
When Will happens-- and really he does sort of _happen_ to her-- Kate considers talking to CJ about it. Men are easier to handle, certainly, and this won't be her first rodeo when it comes to office romance, but old habits really do die hard and so she survives the awkwardness and knowing glances without saying a word. People don't change, not on a fundamental level, but it's nice to know that the opportunity for gossip is there, at least. Maybe that kind of security is why people do all this in the first place. And hey, it’s not like CJ is some kind of example in the dating world.

  
One day, CJ tells her that it 'looks different on the far side of eight years', and Kate can only nod in acceptance. She sees the gulf between them then, for all the closeness and the small world of heightened clearance that they've shared. CJ's done with Washington, at least for a year or two, and Kate feels like she's just getting started. There can't be more than ten years between them, but the difference is palpable.

  
This is her opportunity to ask how a girl avoids going to Oregon, or how best to lobby for a better gig under Santos, but somehow the questions just won't form. Kate doesn't ask for favors, though she'll grant them if she can do it quietly. She'll wave CJ off as she starts anew in California, not too envious of the sunshine and celebrity that the West Coast provides. They'll exchange telephone numbers and personal email addresses, with those vague promises to keep in touch that Kate's been hearing since kindergarten.

  
Three days later, there's a diatribe on her computer about how people drive and the heat, and how the hell do you live with a guy anyway, and Kate realizes that she's less right than usual. She clicks reply and lets her sarcasm go to town.

  
Kate smiles as she hits 'send'; if she's done nothing else in the last three years, at least she's finally found something that lasts.


End file.
